


Jake: Fear Not

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Apotheosis [7]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: All Jake ever wanted to be was a sharpshooter and a soldier. The reality of his situation is not the glorious adventure he'd imagined in his youth.





	

You joined the military looking for adventure, hope for a better tomorrow, all that rot. You were young—seventeen—and optimistic, idealistic…

 

Idiotic.

 

You’re old enough that you remember the Ishvalan War, but only vaguely. You mostly recall how much it upset your grandmother. And of course you’d read about it when you were older, seen old newspaper articles. It wasn’t that you didn’t know history was bias, but…you hadn’t thought it was so bad.

 

***

 

So you are seventeen and a few odd months, still in sniper training and excelling, when it happens.

 

There is an incident involving a girl and a kidnapping. And then a boy. Then another girl. They were spaced a month apart, staggered around the city so as to be unpredictable, but there was no doubt that the kidnappings were related. The kidnapper left a calling card: a rejection letter to his application to take the State Alchemist exam. It was a form letter, so they didn’t even use the man’s name. It was you who suggested to your superior officer that perhaps you could check for repeat applications in the exam records.

 

You don’t get any recognition for your idea, save for a “good show, mate!” from a friend. You’d grown up together, enlisted together, and his approval means more to you than the brass’ approval any day.

 

And they managed to catch the kidnapper’s trail before he could do to the fourth victim what he’d done to the first.

 

“A nasty business,” said his CO, “chimeras,” and left it at that.

 

You’d been white-knuckled with fury, but hadn’t said anything. There wasn’t anything you could do for the poor mutilated kids. You were no alchemist, after all.

 

When the kidnapper was apprehended you had assumed the kids would be returned to their original forms, that a trial would be held, justice served.

 

You had grossly misjudged the motivations which moved your government.

 

Nothing in the papers.

 

Nothing on the radio.

 

You’d gone to your superior and asked, and he’d told you it wasn’t any of your concern, even though you’d been there when they’d found the kids. Even though you’d put a blanket around the shoulders of the boy with bull horns, and hugged the girl with cat ears and tail. The one with tentacles wouldn’t let anyone touch her, but she’d told you thank you, very prettily, and you’d nodded, and some little part of you _knew_ , knew they were important somehow.

 

You’d tried looking them up in classified files, but there was nothing listed under the names you’d expected to find. It took some backlog newspapers to realize you had all three of their names wrong, and you wonder how you managed such a mistake, since you’d literally been a part of the investigation since the military got involved.

 

You look them up by their legal names even though it feels wrong. All trace of them stops the day they were recovered. You take the files to your CO—and then to the next highest rank you know, and then straight on up to Brigadier General.

 

***

 

A week later you are transfered to the danger zone near Pendleton, a few miles south of your own hometown, where the skirmishes with Creta are deadliest. You are not so naive that you don’t know why you were transfered.

 

But you’re a good shot. And you survive, even when your childhood friend does not, even if it isn’t easy, or pretty, or clean. You make it through and things between Amestris and Creta finally calm down enough that you can return to West City.

 

The brass are not thrilled that you survived, but you’re too tired to care. Too angry, too bitter.

 

Children.

 

 _Bloody_ children, and the State sweeps it under the rug like they did with Ishval.

 

Oh, you know that particular truth now, too. Soldiers talk. You finally heard what lay beneath the propaganda and revisionist history: the genuine truth behind it all.

 

The truth isn’t pretty. The truth is smiling, gnashing teeth, and grasping arms. The truth is a blank white face that speaks gently even as it tears out your throat with delicacy.

 

The truth is a stranglehold, and you’re caught tight.

 

You keep your head down when you return to West City. You don’t want to be a sharpshooter anymore, don’t want to be an action hero, a wild adventurer. You just want to survive long enough to finish your contract in one piece.

 

You are truly a dog of the military, and a beaten one at that.

 

***

 

The months pass slowly and you find a new place for yourself in the Investigations office, under a woman who is fierce and determined and reminds you of your grandmother. Her daughter’s photo has pride-of-place on her desk. “She wants to be a lawyer,” she tells you when she sees you looking.

 

You’re looking because you already knew that, and because you know her name, like you’d known the chimera kids’ names, and it _isn’t_ the name her mother calls her.

 

(Just like _your_ name isn’t the one on your military papers.)

 

***

 

You’re nineteen and feel like you’re ninety, sometimes. You used to be _good_ at names and faces, and now you’re so bad at faces you’re seeing the wrong ones, and so bad at names you’re straight up hearing them wrong.

 

The new State Alchemist assigned to your office tells you her name, and five minutes later you accidentally call her Vriska, instead. You’ve never even heard a name like Vriska, before, and the look of surprise that crosses her face leaves you mumbling and embarrassed, and you volunteer to do a coffee run for the office, rather than face the awkward questions. You’ll just call her “Circuit,” you decide. You can remember Circuit Alchemist better, for some reason, even if it doesn’t sound _quite_ right.

 

You think you might be going mad—it’s the only explanation for these things that keep happening, the wrong-right sense of recognition.

 

You overhear your CO tell Circuit “he had a rough go of it, in last year’s conflict with Creta. Hasn’t been quite right in the head, since, I’m told. Asks funny questions. Harmless, though, so don’t worry about it if he seems confused sometimes.”

 

“Hmmm,” said Circuit in response, and for some reason you are _certain_ she holds it out for a count of eight.

 

You go to get the coffee

 

***

 

There is a man your age (just days difference) standing in the street outside the coffee shop, dark skin, hair dark, but there are bright roots starting to sneak up. He’s wearing shades, even though it’s overcast. He’s not anyone you’ve ever seen before, you know for certain, and yet…

 

You don’t realize you’ve stopped in the middle of the sidewalk until he turns and looks at you. His jaw clenches, and somehow— _somehow_ —you know he’s controlling himself, not letting himself react, just like he used to do when he was sixteen. The oil and grease on his pants, where he’s wiped a grimy wrench, or his hands, is entirely familiar.

 

Somehow precious.

 

“Dirk,” you say. It just slips out, you don’t _mean_ to.

 

Something like tension goes out of him. He doesn’t change visibly, doesn’t even unclench his jaw, but…

 

He’s glad to see you, too.

 

“Guess it’s all of us, then,” he says.

 

“All of us?” you ask. You’re standing too close, like he was someone you used to fall asleep on, someone who fought back-to-back with you. You have kissed those lips before.

 

“John and Jade are inside. And here we are. If I had to guess, I’d say that means we’ve all made it through.” He pauses, gives you a once-over. “You look different. Good though.”

 

“You too,” you say, and it comes out in a rush and feels like a continuation and a fresh start all at once.

 

(You don’t have matching tattoos anymore.

 

You don’t think you _need_ them anymore.)

 

There is a long pause. You think you can see a scar at the middle of his throat and it makes you shiver.

 

“I…don’t understand what’s happening,” you admit.

 

“I’m not entirely sure, myself,” he says. It’s the first time you can remember him admitting that he doesn’t have all the answers. “The other four,” he says, then stops, like the knowledge that there are an “other” four is new and surprising. You are surprised to know that there were four in your own group, once, too. Dirk pushes on. “The other four, they seem to remember better. Everything’s vague for me, extremely disorienting. The disorientation is familiar, at least.”

 

You nod. “For me, too. I guess…we need to wait for Rose…?” The name comes to you like a dream, or like someone you might have been told a story about once, or seen an old photo of. A headband. Wands. Something scratching in the night. Little images that don’t make sense but still somehow mean _Rose_.

 

Dirk just nods, and you stand there. You aren’t touching, but you’re so close…

 

Suddenly he snorts, and just the smallest hint of a smile edges into his expression.

 

“Can I buy you a coffee?” he asks, gesturing at the shop over his shoulder. You laugh, and accept.

 

***

 

You completely forget that you’re on the clock. You forget that there are people back at Command waiting for their own coffees. You wind up just sitting, talking, for nearly an hour. John and Jade are just how you remember, and nothing like they used to be, but mostly they keep to themselves at another table. For the first time since Pendleton, since Creta, you feel something small and dangerously warm beneath your breast.

 

You’re afraid to name it.

 

It’s funny, because you’ve known this man for so long. You were so close, and so distant, and the relationship had been a train wreck in so many ways, and so good in so many others.

 

 

You want to laugh, but don’t. Because despite your long and colorful history with Dirk Strider, in this world or any other, somehow this manages to be your first proper date.

 

The feeling unfurls, a banner, a standard, _triumphant_ ; and you’re smiling anyway, suddenly not afraid anymore.

 

 _Hope_ . Its name is _hope_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jake's not a character I write all that often, so I hope I've done him justice.


End file.
